June 18 2008, International Business Forum of Bangladesh (IBFB) organized a discussion session on The Need of Energy Producers and Government Perspectives at Pan Pacific Sonargaon hotel, Dhaka.
The objective of the session is to utilize the knowledge and resources of Bangladesh business community to improve the energy sector through public policy reform. Prof. Dr. M. Tamim, Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser, Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources was present as Chief Guest and Mr. Mahmudul Islam Chowdhury, President, IBFB chaired the session. Four papers were presented in this session by Mr. Jalal Ahmed, Chairman of Petrobangla, Mr. Steve Wilson, President of Chevron Bangladesh, Dr. M. Shahidul Islam from Grameen Shakti and Mr. Ajay Nambiar, Director (Commercial) from Cairn Energy.
Prof. Dr. M. Tamim, Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser receiving crest from Mr. ATM Saidul Alam,
Vice President of IBFB. Mr. Mahmudul Islam Chowdhury, President of IBFB (left) and
Mr. Tanveer Imam, Treasurer of IBFB (right) are seen in the photograph
Prof. M. Tamim in his speech appreciated the initiative taken by IBFB for the development of this top most priority sector of the country. He laid emphasis on continuation of such programs and ensured all out support from the government in marking power available to the people in shortest possible time. Prof. Tamim also emphasized on price adjustment of energy and power to minimize the loss of PDB, Petrobangla and other organization so that they can run efficiently and economically and provide better services to the nation. He told that govt. alone would not go for big investment in power generation and need to involve in public-private partnership in the future. Prof. Tamim appreciated the effort of Grameen Shakti and other similar organizations producing power from alternative sources like solar, bio-fuel, bio-gas, wind energy etc. to reduce dependency on natural gas.
Government has already prepared short-medium and long-term plan for power generation. Under the short term plan, around 1200 MW of new electricity will be added within December 2008. Government is also working for around 2500 MW power plants to be commissioned in next 2-3 years. For long-term planning, government already approved Power System Master Plan (PSMP) in April 2008 to meet the growing demand of power.
Petrobangla Chairman told that to match the projected demand of gas upto 2025 (taking into consideration of 7% GDP), additional 24-26 Tcf of gas has to be added with the present reserve. He also told that market oriented gas price needs to be introduced so that both public & private energy vis-a-vis gas producers are encouraged to invest in this sector. Mr. Nambiar of Cairn Energy with his presentation shows that the net impact of the HSFO ceiling price increase by 50% and 10-15% price increase by imposing income tax. The offshore costs of gas have increased by 355% from 1996 to 2008 and it continues to rise. Mr. M. Shahidul Islam told in his presentation that about 70% of the population does not have access to grid electricity and only a mere 3% has access to piped gas. Grameen Shakti has installed more than 162,000 solar home systems throughout the country with a total electricity production capacity of 15.4 MW.
Participants from govt. organization, international organization, donor agency, embassies, private sectors, journalists were present in this session and took part in the question and answer session.
